Research Suggests Unusual Form of Cell Death Causes Severe COVID-19 Lung Damage
1st June 2024
SARS-CoV-2 infection may cause severe pulmonary conditions such as pneumonia, inflammation, and acute respiratory distress syndrome, but until now, researchers have not understood the driving force behind lung damage caused by COVID-19.
In a recently published paper in Nature Communications, researchers at Columbia University discovered that a relatively new form of iron-dependent cell death called ferroptosis is the underlying mechanism causing extreme and potentially fatal pulmonary conditions in COVID-19 patients.
“This finding adds crucial insight to our understanding of how COVID-19 affects the body that will significantly improve our ability to fight life-threatening cases of the disease,” Brent Stockwell, chair of the department of biological sciences at Columbia and co-lead author of the study, said in a news release.